Wednesday DE: And another thing

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Pulling from the Suggestion Box today, with thanks to aberration.

Do you have any unpopular/uncommon views about your character or their canon?

Comments

[cameoflage]

People like to write Bastion as either having the mentality of a young child, or being super rude and foul-mouthed, if one were to translate their beeping. I don't like either of those interpretations; I think the first one is reductive and out of place (and the juxtaposition of incredibly deadly firepower and childlike naïve innocence is a cliché), and the second one seems to exist primarily for gags about a string of unintelligible beeps translating to something shocking. Even fans who don't fall directly into one of those often write them as not being very smart, but they're canonically no less complex or fully realised of an AI than Zenyatta or Orisa, they just can't speak English* like the other omnic characters can.

For my other characters I don't have any really unpopular views; some of them have popular interpretations or headcanons that I don't use or don't like, but also plenty of fans whose interpretations line up with mine.

*Well, there's one omnic NPC whose dialogue is entirely in French, but you get the idea.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

While it's less of a thing now (it kind of fizzled out once Tri started), there was a trend for a while of fans really struggling to balance the two sides of Yamato's personality: They would either massively overblow his artistic side, his nurturing nature, and his emotional vulnerability, and he'd be written as A Sensitive Artiste™ who is extremely delicate and fragile and teary-eyed (often with a contrast to Taichi as the Strong Cheerful One); or they'd equally massively overblow his violent and competitive side, his gruff and angry nature, and his emotional defensiveness, and he'd be written as a blunt psychopath who despises everyone around him.

(Taichi also gets hit with this a lot -- there were a lot of people complaining about him being anxious and skittish in Tri, despite the fact that there are entire arcs of the show built on Taichi having anxiety problems. There's similarly a tendency to write Mimi as being a fragile, delicate character who can't do anything for herself, despite her being one of the most forceful characters in the cast.)

Some of this is down to the dub for 01, which changes Yamato's character to be less gruff and less, er, borderline feral; some of it is down to the fact that there was a fifteen year gap between 02 and Tri, and a lot of fans just didn't remember what he was like until Tri started airing; some of it is down to the fact that fans often like to pigeonhole characters into neat archetypes; and some of it is just that fans aren't amazing at balancing what can often seem like a contradictory set of personality traits.

While this was rife in the run-up to and early episodes of Tri, it seems to have faded out somewhat since Tri started airing, possibly because (thankfully) Tri's writers and Yoshimasa Hosoya do a really good job of portraying that balance of traits.

[bjornwilde]

Jessica: I think it could be interesting if she were to get and use a set of webshooters. The fans I've come across seem to be scandalized anytime she's drawn using webs, so I think this counts?

I'll think more on my others but work is being a harsh mistress today.

[ceitfianna]

I don't like how Cassian is written in SWs books that don't get Cassian and make him always angry. A really fun book that actually did Kay and Chewie great ended with Cassian as this angry, growly captain and made me sad. Alexander Freed got him down so perfectly in the novelization that everything else has a hard time living up to it.

I've noticed that too in art that's not from rebelcaptain artists, no one draws him smiling or enjoying the found family aspect of Rogue One. That's partly why I tend to stay in the rebelcaptain section of the Rogue One fandom, there seems more appreciation of Cassian as complex and as someone who does know how to smile. Also I get annoyed when he gets called Cass especially by Jyn, it always jar me in a fic. Other people I could see it happening but from her it feels odd. I've gotten more used to it but names matter so much with both of them that a nickname feels off for him. There's one fandom writer who I love their stuff other than the nickname.

I don't really get all the AUs that exist in the Charles and Erik section of X-Men fanfic, because for me I find them interesting because of being mutants. And Marvel provides great set up for what ifs anyway. That's why I've never actually read as much fanfic as I've written in that fandom. Whenever I went looking it was AU and AU and usually human ones. With Rogue One fandom and especially rebelcaptain, I get the AUs, we want the happy ending and more time with everyone.

I don't actually think that Moist and Spike would last long term, I always read them as happy for now. And they'd stay in each other's orbit but that marriage and kids wouldn't really suit them. I kind of ignore Raising Steam, there's some interesting stuff in the book in terms of where Discworld might go but Moist becomes oddly Vimeslike. Its odd to say that a book feels out of character but that one does for Moist though not for Discworld.

There's nothing as much in terms of my other characters. My Robin Hood verse is pretty much my own so that's never been one that I spend time in the fandom.

Actually for Demeter, the whole awful mother-in-law stuff can get kind of tiring. Its fascinating seeing all the thoughtful rethinkings of Hades and Persephone but Demeter is usually off on the side being a overprotective or cruel. I feel like there's a way to balance it out and give her as much respect for being an active part of the story too.

[for_everyone]

lol I forgot I did this but I can see why I did, uh

I don't want to get into my volcanic Star Wars hot takes because... yeah, I have them, but I'll stick to some still... mildly hot? but more obscure takes.

Hera - Oy, there is a lot to be said here about how (almost exclusively male) writers handle Hera. But I guess maybe the foremost hottest take is that (*spoilers for the Rebels finale*) Jacen Syndulla was a poorly thought out mistake that sealed how Hera's story at that point had become entirely about her relationship to men. Thank God Kanan having a girlfriend means we can continue his story through her since that's what women are for, right? Yikes yikes yikes. That Vanessa Marshall apparently didn't even know about this just underlines how last minute the whole thing seems to have been, and frankly makes the final season and final half-season especially come off as all the more slapped together because we have to finish this shit up and bring back Clone Wars.

But more broadly, I think some writers see that Hera can be maternal, or really more that she can be compassionate and caring and adherent to some level of moral instruction and willing to put forth emotional labor and basically translate that to "everybody's mommy." Which. She is not. Up until basically the last half of the final season of SWR, Hera's motivation and characterization are defined by the complicated position of being both a military leader and emotional support/parental figure for her immediate crew. There's a scene I love early on in the show in which Ezra has a vision of his worst fears concerning the Ghost crew, which for Hera is illustrated by her mourning his apparent death in only lamenting that they'd lost skills that would have been useful to the rebel cause. I think this is a really smart and insightful view of her character, and lends her a lot of complexity, in that while it's not true, it's also not entirely untrue. While Hera certainly does care for her crew as individuals, she also uses them and their skills in the service of war. This tension runs throughout her actions in the series - in her keeping information about the early rebellion from her crew, in initially being willing to leave Kanan to the Empire, and in her friction with Kanan concerning the Ghost crew's role in the budding Rebellion. It also kind of undergirds the ambiguous nature of Hera and Kanan's relationship generally, though that also ends up being kind of a mess in season 4 anyway, down to like, "we can't even allow Hera agency in discussing her feelings." Which is part of why we threw out that ambiguity altogether.

And in general, there's a tension in the show in whether the writers treat Hera as her own character with her own perspective, and when she basically exists to advance the emotional stories of male characters. It even goes to her position in the Ghost crew - it's pretty clear the writers initially envisioned Kanan as the "leader" (they literally call him this multiple times) because he's the dude and he's a Jedi (and he's a human, probably), but that it became quite apparent that as the ship's captain and rebel insider, Hera made way more sense in that position, to the point that the show... sort of seemed to get that... until abruptly season 4 and no it didn't. There are episodes and moments that spotlight Hera and her perspectives, and then moments where she's pretty much made a sounding board for other characters. (The reason we extended Hera and Kanan's argument near the beginning of s2 was to allow Hera and her point of view really any space in that conversation at all.)

And... then season 4 happened, and the end of Hera's arc seemed to become "just literally be a mom" despite that this made no sense for the direction of her arc and pretty radically ignored her motivations because Boyfriend, and blargh. Which, also hot take: Dave Filoni makes some incredible female characters, but often has trouble disentangling their narratives from those of men.

And then there's Hera's appearances in other media... which. John Jackson Miller's A New Dawn is amazing and perfect. So far I've liked her in Alexander Freed's Alphabet Squadron. She's been fine in the Forces of Destiny comics, I actually really like hers in particular. And then.... the Aphra comics, which are pure character assassination into "everybody's mommy" oblivion. This kind of gets to my issues with the Aphra comics more generally, in that they don't let Aphra, this 30 or so year old woman, be say a fun and entertaining garbage adult, but instead keep her a spunky teenager, and it seems the writers can't put women in this comic who aren't "spunky teenager" or "nagging mother." Like, the Sana Starros panel with Hera is so horrifying to me, in how it seems to exist to shit on Hera for zero reason and turn Sana Starros into some self-absorbed monster who would make those kinds of pointless presumptions about other people's trauma. So like, yeah, Gillen and Spurrier clearly have zero notion of Hera's character or voice, and really come off like they think anyone with an ounce of compassion or moral integrity (which can be played as rather feminine-gendered traits, especially in Hera) must be hopelessly incompetent and naive, unlike Cool Girl Badass Aphra. yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes Like, if you must put Aphra up against some incompetent naive rebel (which also, why?), at least just make one up instead of tearing down one of the women leaders of the rebellion.

(Which is also something I feel like both older and modern Star Wars falls into a lot, like yep sure let's just use Mon Mothma to be your pointless killjoy for some reason, okay, not to even get into how Leia was initially treated and they had to put her in that gold bikini to "soften" her or whatever so. OKAY.)


Kanan - Media outside Rebels, by which I mean basically A New Dawn and his comic, gives adult Kanan this kind of generic Han Solo swagger that he... doesn't really have. He can be self-assured, but it's actually not generally his default setting, he's full of self-doubt and insecurity and doesn't generally overcompensate for that by like, idk, dude-broing to the extent that he's sometimes portrayed as outside the show. There's a very generic to take on Kanan's character (and by extension Hera, his comic has some very capital-g-Girlfriend art with her), and while I actually think the show pretty aptly avoided that, not everything does.


... really which, in conclusion, the Rebels finale was... not very good in a lot of ways, and comes off as rushed to get to Bring Back Clone Wars(tm), and I am maybe forever resentful.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam and Eric forever was always my endgame in True Blood. I think the majority of TB fans were rooting for Sookie to be with Eric in the end, and I'm glad it didn't happen that way. Now, I think Eric truly did love Sookie, but he couldn't see past the fact that she was terrible for him. The only reasons she ever interacted with him toward the end was to ask for favors, usually to help Bill (ugh dieeee Bill DIEEE), and all those favors ever did was get Eric into trouble. And when Eric went missing, she wasn't the one who went looking for him, it was Pam. So yeah, I'm very firmly in the Paric ship. (I never finished reading the novels, though, so I don't know what happened there.)

[splash_of_blue]

Sam and Beref don't really have fandoms, and I don't know enough about Runaways- or Tortall-specific fandom to say with regard to Moll and Raoul.

McGonagall - I ignore almost everything JKR has said about her (and the Potter world) that isn't in the original seven books, so I imagine there's quite a lot there! Specifically with regards to McGonagall herself, though, I have to admit that, er... I don't actually think Maggie Smith looks right for her? When she's acting, of course, she's absolutely perfect, because she's Dame Maggie Goddamn Smith and she can play anyone she likes and be perfect. But in looks alone I imagine her as slightly younger-looking and as described in the books: black-haired and always wearing square-shaped spectacles. (This also made finding a PB for her quite difficult: there are not enough older actresses, goddamnit!)

War - Similar to McGonagall, I'm playing her based entirely on the book, so I imagine there are a few unpopular ways to write her at the moment just because TV-based portrayals are more popular right now.